“Up to a point,” said Randall. “Have we now finished this discussion?”
“No. I want to know—I insist on knowing what you mean to do!”
“What I mean to do?” repeated Randall, dropping the words out disdainfully one by one. “Is it possible—is it really possible that you imagine I am going to concern myself with your utterly uninteresting love-affairs?”
Lupton flushed, but his muscles seemed to relax. “I don't know. I'd believe anything of your family, anything! As for you, if you saw a chance to make mischief you'd take it!”
“In this case,” said Randall unpleasantly, “it affords me purer gratification to dwell upon the thought of my dear Aunt Gertrude duped and betrayed.”
“Your aunt doesn't suffer through it!”
“What a pity!” said Randall.
The baize-door at the back of the hall opened at this moment, and Miss Matthews came through carrying her replenished bowl of flowers. “Oh, Henry! Gertrude's gone,” she said. “And I must say, Randall, I think it was most uncalled-for, whatever it was you said to her. Not that I know what it was, for I don't, and I'm sure I don't want to. And if you mean to stay to lunch I do think you might have let me know, because whatever your Aunt Zoë's ideas of housekeeping may be mine are different, and there won't be enough.”
“Fortunately,” said Randall, “I have no such intention.”
“Well, I hope I am not inhospitable,” said Miss Matthews, slightly mollified, “but I must say I'm glad to hear it. There are quite enough people to feed in this house without adding to them. I've already had to make it plain to Zoë that I'm not going to have her friends coming here to meals all day and every day, and behaving as though the drawing-room existed just for them to play Bridge in. I know very well what her idea is, and I'm not going to put up with it! The house is just as much mine as it is hers. More so, if everyone had their rights, and so is the car, and I won't have it used without her even asking me if I want it!… Yes, Zoë I am talking about you, and I don't care who hears me!”